WND EXCLUSIVE

1700 B.C.: ‘ALLA’ GOD OF ‘VIOLENCE AND REVOLUTION’

A research article posted on the website of terrorist-turned-Christian Walid Shoebat contends the oldest known references to the Islamic deity Allah are not in Arabian records but in Babylonian artifacts.

Ancient tablets describe “Alla” as a deity of “violence and revolution.”

“This link sheds new light since for many years we have been hearing various ideas on where Allah came from. Christian and Muslim scholars – as well as secular professors – presented numerous arguments on just who Allah really is,” wrote Theodore Shoebat, the son of Walid Shoebat.

In his heavily footnoted project, he writes that historians have suggested Islam’s beginnings are found in the Persian religion Zoroastrianism, while others, including Christian writers, argue Allah was a moon-god in Babylon.

The younger Shoebat, who already has published several books, said previously the oldest known reference to “Allah” was in northern and southern Arabia about the fifth century B.C., according to Kenneth J. Thomas.

The new find, however, links the name to the Epic of Atrahasis, chiseled on tablets sometime around 1700 B.C. in Babylon.

“The beginning of the Epic of Atrahasis describes Allah as how all of the gods labored endlessly in grueling work, under the rule of the patron deity Enlil or Elil. But soon revolt of the gods had erupted, and one deity of ‘violence and revolution’ [was] named Allah (spelled by the experts as Alla),” he wrote.

Walid Shoebat said he believes this is the first time the connection has been made.

Theodore Shoebat said one of the early such references in the Epic of Atrahasis states: “Then Alla made his voice heard and spoke to the gods his brothers,’ Come! Let us carry Elil, the counselor of gods, the warrior from his dwelling.”

The younger Shoebat, whose latest book is “For God or for Tyranny,” grew up in Northern California, where he witnessed Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

Theodore Shoebat explained that no one had found any ancient pre-Islamic inscriptions that describe Allah being “worshiped purely, without idolatrous connotations.”

“The question remains as to why no expert on Assyriology or Sumerology had even suspected that ‘Alla’ had a connection with the Arabian ‘Allah,’” he wrote. “I checked the work of Thorkild Jacobsen, a foremost authority on Mesopotamian history and the dictionary of the translator, Stephanie Dally, and none make a connection between the Bablylonian ‘Alla’ and the Arabian ‘Allah.’

“Allah of the Babylonian Epic of Atrahasis was most likely kept hidden by researchers who feared controversy or even concealed the find,” he wrote. “In the epic Allah, which translators spelled ‘Alla’ (really pronounced the same way), was never even linked by any of the experts on Assyriology or any of the translators who wrote on the subject to the known Allah of Arabia and Islam.

“To those who accuse me of basing my conclusion, that Alla is Allah, on solely prejudice against Islam, I will present further evidence for my belief. It must be known to the reader that the author of the Atrahasis epic was one Ipiq-Aya who lived under the reign of the Old Babylonian king Ammi-Saduqa, and that he wrote it in the Akkadian language (the tongue of the Old Babylonian kingdom),” Ted Shoebat explained. “The ‘Akkadians’ it must be noted did not originally spring from Iraq, but had migrated from south Arabia, specifically Yemen, into Mesopotamia, where south Arabian inscriptions have been discovered, as in Kuwait on the Arab shores of the Persian gulf close to the borders of Iraq. The deities of Shamash (the Sun), and Ashdar/ Athtar (Venus) were both brought by the Akkadians from South Arabia into Mesopotamia.

“Athtar was originally a male deity of Venus for the Akkadian Arabs, but because when they had settled into Mesopotamia, they had equated Athtar with the Sumerian goddess of Venus Inanna, and would become the Babylonian Ishtar. This Athtar was also identified with the Arabian Allat, the female consort of Allah who was so revered by the Mesopotamians that they had called her Um-Uruk, or ‘the mother of the town of Erech,’ an infamous city of ancient Iraq,” he continued, “Since Allat was the feminine root of Allah, and was worshiped in Mesopotamia, and equal to the Sumerian Inanna, since they were both Venus goddesses, we should be able to find Allah associated with this goddess, based on inscriptions. In fact, we do, a Sumerian verse which directly identifies ‘Alla’ with the bridegroom of Inanna, Dumuzi or Tammuz who was an ancient deified king who once ruled the city-state of Erech, or Uruk, as the fourth king of its First Dynasty.”

He said it appears “Alla” “is an ancestral deity who was worshiped in Mesopotamia.” The writings from the time talk about Allah’s death, he explained.

“By the testimony of the Sumerians, it is clear that this Alla, or Tammuz, was once an infamous king of Erech, to only be deified by the superstitious masses of Mesopotamia.”